Providing online services or applications to users often requires the identification of some geographical context or location. For example, if a user requests the mapping of an address or site, or searches for a business or other organization within some area, the service will establish some geographical context for the user's request and/or its response. That context may determine how much area around a target destination is mapped, the scale of such a map, how many search results are served, etc.
Existing methods of establishing a geographical context are relatively simplistic, as they assume the user is only interested in a single area of limited size that is centered on a particular location, such as the user's home zip code, the address of a location being mapped, etc.
However, the inflexible manner in which a geographical context is currently selected by an electronic service often does not match a user's true area of interest. More specifically, a user may spend the majority of her time outside the area adopted by the service. For example, instead of remaining near her home, she may spend most of her time around her work location, around friends' or relatives' homes, etc. Her actual pattern of travel and living habits may therefore have little in common with the area the service assumes is most convenient or relevant for her, and the information provided by the service may therefore be of little use.